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Cities in the Land of the Long White Cloud suffer from pollution caused by the wood fires, that provide most of the domestic heating in poorly insulated houses

Most images of New Zealand show a pristine environment of great beauty. It therefore comes as a surprise that airborne particle pollution in many towns is above World Health Organisation guidelines. This is not due to the diesel cars that confound efforts to manage air pollution in Europe, or the density of cities and industry that contributes to problems in east Asia, Europe and parts of north America. It is due mainly to home heating.

With limited availability of natural gas and expensive electricity many New Zealanders, especially those in the South Island, rely on wood burning to heat their homes. National standards for particle pollution allow for one polluted day per year but Christchurch measured eight in 2015 and the city of Timaru breached standards on 26 days.

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Tick paralysis is one of the most common preventable causes of death in dogs and cats along the east coast of Australia.

Some 10,000 dogs are affected each year, 5% of them fatally. That means 500 dogs will die from ticks each year, with the remainder undergoing discomfort and suffering.

What’s more, there is a great cost to owners. Bills for treatment range from A$5,000 to A$10,000 in the most severely affected patients.

In Sydney, the “tick season” begins in September (although there are no hard and fast rules). Caught early, ticks are easy and cheap to treat.

But if undetected, tick attachment can make for an expensive and sometimes tragic trip to the vet. So what’s the best way to keep your pet safe as the weather warms up?

How do ticks paralyse and kill?

Tick paralysis results from a neurotoxin secreted in the saliva of the paralysis tick, Ixodes holocyclus, as it sucks the blood of mammalian hosts. As the tick feeds, it secretes holocyclotoxin (tick toxin) into the bloodstream.

This parasite normally lives on native Australian marsupials such as bandicoots, macropods and possums, which have developed some immunity to tick toxin.

Cats, dogs and children are generally not so lucky. After three to four days there is often sufficient intoxication (or envenomation) for the development of muscle weakness and eventually paralysis.

The tick toxin prevents the release of packets of acetylcholine neurotransmitter from the motor nerve terminals, which communicate with muscles. Typically, dogs developing tick paralysis first get a change in their bark, which observant owners pick up on. They may also regurgitate food due to weakness of muscles in the throat and oesophagus.

As the concentration of toxin in the blood rises, muscles get progressively weaker, resulting first in a wobbly hind-limb gait, then hind-limb paralysis and eventually flaccid paralysis of all four legs. Owners will often say dogs have “gone in the back legs”.

Paradoxically, cats get agitated and develop a funny breathing pattern with a soft grunt at the end of expiration. Weakness is typically less obvious to their owners, at least early in disease progression.

In advanced cases, the respiratory muscles are paralysed, which results in death unless the patient is placed on a ventilator.

Human babies and children can also suffer from tick intoxication. Historically, more children have died of (often misdiagnosed) tick paralysis in Australia than from snake bite, although this is rare these days because of modern intensive care practices and use of tick anti-toxin (antibodies against holocyclotoxin).

The life cycle of the paralysis tick results in this disease being seasonal, especially in New South Wales. Most cases occur in spring and summer, because this is when ticks are more active and numerous. It is also a time when pets’ acquired immunity is lowest.

Tick paralysis tends to be especially common in certain areas. For example, the northern beaches of Sydney are a hot spot, with Avalon often being called “tick central”. Many human patients with ticks attached are seen at Mona Vale Hospital in northern Sydney.

In Brisbane, southeast Queensland and the north coast of NSW, the tick season is longer and the disease is even more common. Paralysis ticks are not found west of the Great Dividing Range, so pets in Canberra are safe, unless they visit the coast for the weekend.

New preventative measures

Tick paralysis is an eminently treatable disease, and management is straightforward if cases are presented early.

If you find a tick on your pet, all you need to do is lever it off using the correct technique (many advocate killing the tick first).

But if the diagnosis is missed, or if owners present affected cats and dogs only when signs are advanced, then treatment is complex and expensive. Tragically, some patients die despite advanced therapy including the administration of tick anti-toxin and assistance with breathing.

Not only is there a real risk of death, but all affected animals suffer from the disease. From a welfare perspective, it’s better to focus on prevention, rather than treatment. And because tick paralysis is preventable, it’s usually not covered by pet insurance.

Until last year, prevention relied on a daily search of every at-risk pet for ticks, and the prophylactic administration of systemic or topical acaricide or drugs with a tick repellent and/or killing action, such as fipronil or permethrin. These are all applied directly to pets' fur.

But these treatments can be washed off by rain, shampooing or swimming. Permethrin, although quite effective and safe in dogs, is devastatingly toxic to cats. Many were inadvertently treated (and killed) as a result of poor labelling of various canine products.

Last year there was a paradigm shift in tick paralysis prevention. MSD Animal Health released fluralaner (sold as Bravecto) – a new preventative drug. This is one of the first of a new class of drugs that act on both ticks and other arthropods, including fleas.

Fluralaner is available through vets or online as a chewable tablet for dogs. A transdermal formulation will soon be available for cats, which can be applied directly to the fur.

One tablet of the correct size will protect dogs against tick paralysis for four months or longer and be effective also against flea infestation for three months. (Australian studies show the drug is 100% effective against paralysis ticks for four months, and 96% effective for five months.) There are other products that are similarly effective but need to be given once a month.

Since last year’s tick season, vets up and down the coast have observed a sharp reduction in the number of dogs presented for tick paralysis. So we are pretty sure these new products are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.

The products would appear to be very safe to use on dogs, with a wide margin of safety. However, as with any drug, you should consider consulting with your vet.

My wish is to cajole as many pet owners to administer these drugs to all at-risk animals before the tick season starts in earnest.

At the moment, the simplest path is to recommend that all dogs get a fluralaner tablet towards the end of August and ideally again in December. A good way to synchronise this might be remember to give the first dose on Wattle Day (September 1) and then again on New Year’s Day.

If every dog owner did this, tick paralysis would be eradicated as a cause of death and suffering in dogs. And soon we will have a similar product suitable for cats, which we can just squirt onto the fur over their necks.

So, get your pet ticked off this spring.

Richard Malik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Europe’s Sentinel radar satellites map Italy's Apennine mountains, revealing the scale of ground movement in Wednesday's big earthquake.

Yellowstone and other major parks grappling with illegal camping, vandalism, theft of resources, wildlife harassment and other misbehavior from visitors

On the edge of a meadow in Yellowstone National Park, tourist John Gleason crept through the grass, four small children close behind, inching toward a bull elk with antlers like small trees.

“They’re going to give me a heart attack,” said Gleason’s mother-in-law, Barbara Henry, as the group came within about a dozen yards of the massive animal.

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Data released by food watchdog reveals incidences of chickens being boiled alive and animals suffocating or freezing to death in trucks

There were more than 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations over the past two years at British slaughterhouses, according to data released by the government’s food watchdog under freedom of information laws.

The data, comprising reports by vets and hygiene inspectors, details instances of needless pain and distress that include chickens being boiled alive and trucks of animals suffocating or freezing to death.

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• ‘We’ve never seen two together,’ says co-founder of marine conservation
  
• The whales are the largest creatures on earth

Two blue whales have been seen off the New England coast, in a rare sighting of the largest creatures on earth.

Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conversation cofounder Dianna Schulte told WMUR-TV she was working aboard the Granite State off the coast of Rye Harbor, New Hampshire, on Friday when she spotted the whales.

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More nuggets of info on the stuff our Olympics medals were made of

Perhaps it’s all those Olympic medals, but our small preview of Fairtrade gold wedding bands from Argos several weeks ago has led to a rush of queries about clean gold. So here are some further nuggets.

Be led by the UK’s pioneer jewellery activists. Greg Valerio and cred- jewellery.com have fought to make the supply chain transparent. Critically, they have also put ethical gold into jewellery so we can buy it. Meanwhile, small-scale independent jewellers such as annaloucah.com and yumejewellery.com are part of Fairgold’s goldsmiths’ registration scheme.

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As the National Park Service turns 100, longtime rangers reflect on tasks ranging from teaching rescue missions – and the sexism many female rangers face

Andrea “Andy” Lankford often came close to death during her twelve years as a ranger for the National Park Service. But there was nothing quite as horrific as the time she ended up with parts of a human brain in her hand.

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Campaigners attack broken election pledge to shut down domestic market

The UK is putting elephants at risk of extinction through its broken promises on the ivory trade, according to campaigners. Before the last election, the Conservative party pledged to shut down the UK’s domestic ivory market: at the time 30,000 elephants a year were being slaughtered for their tusks. But no action has been taken.

While bans on the international trade in ivory exist, a failure to observe similar measures at a national level is being exploited by criminal gangs who smuggle ivory into the UK, where it can be passed off as antique. Now, in the run-up to a major conference, more than 1.6 million people have signed a petition on the Avaaz activist website calling for the world’s domestic ivory markets to be closed down for good.

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The US space agency’s Juno probe at Jupiter is about to make its first close approach to the planet since going into orbit in July.

From underwater military tanks to Spanish wildfires, the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week

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Numbers of the endangered butterfly, once pronounced extinct in the UK, have reached their highest level in 80 years, according to conservationists

A butterfly once pronounced extinct in the UK has been seen in record numbers this year, according to conservationists.

There were over 10,000 adult large blue butterflies in Gloucestershire and Somerset – the largest concentration of the species known in the world.

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Strathnairn, Highlands Its rich chocolate fur looked luxuriant, and it was easy to see why it was so much prized in the middle ages as a trimming for robes of state

Mid-afternoon, and I watched the pine marten hunting a woodland bank, sniffing and listening for prey such as voles. Above it was ripening the rich crop of rowan berries that would augment its diet in late autumn.

It must have been hungry to be out hunting at this time of day, as pine martens are normally nocturnal. No doubt the poor weather of late had not helped. However, this one – a female, judging from its size – was in good condition, graceful and agile, with its slender body and long, bushy tail. Its rich chocolate fur looked luxuriant and it was easy to see why it was prized in the middle ages as a trimming for robes of state.

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Beyond the coal rush part 1: The march of coal

Tom Morton visits Germany, India and northern NSW where plans are underway for new and bigger coal mines. Local people are fighting back, to save their traditional lands, their ancient villages, animal corridors and rich agricultural lands, all of which are threatened by the ongoing march of coal.

But farmers are concerned they will not be able to protect crops from insects if they cannot use neonicotinoids

Minnesota’s governor on Friday ordered the broadest restrictions yet in a US state on the use of agricultural pesticides that have been blamed for hurting bees, fuelling concerns that farmers there will not be able to protect crops from insects.

Governor Mark Dayton issued an executive order that requires farmers to verify they face “an imminent threat of significant crop loss” before using the chemicals, called neonicotinoids.

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The northern hopping-mouse is a master builder. It's barely big enough to fill the palm of your hand, yet it digs metres worth of burrows with multiple secret entrances AND it cleans up after itself.

US President Barack Obama expands a national monument off Hawaii, creating the world's largest marine reserve.

We're keeping tabs on barramundi; the Yandina farmers market explodes in a riot of colour; we meet a young woman with a passion for her hairy belted galloways; and we do the rounds during lambing time

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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